There was a gas attack in Syria, but who did it is a little unclear:
http://abcnews.go.com/International/syrias-latest-chemical-attack/story?id=46617872
After apparently having some good intel that the Syrian regime under Assad was responsible, Trump launched 59 Tomahawk missiles at a Syrian airbase:
http://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-syria-airstrike-20170406-story.html
What does this trike mean for relations in Syria, with Russia, across the globe, and with politics at home?
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/07/us/politics/trump-syria-airstrikes.html?_r=0
Monday, April 10, 2017
Friday, February 3, 2017
The Food of the Future
The industrialized world produces a vast amount of food. During the middle ages, over 90% of the population were farmers; now, that number is less than one percent, and and yet they feed hundreds of times more people. Even so, there are problems with food supplies all over the world, and these problems are probably only going to grow. As the climate changes and sea levels rise, as droughts and natural disasters increase in frequency, it seems likely that our food supply will become more and more uncertain.
What can we do to counteract this? Many projects aim to increase farming efficiency, ranging from borderline barbaric treatment of animals to vertical farming to new types of higher-yield crops. One argument that I've heard supporting vegetarianism is that it takes about eight pounds of, for instance, corn to produce one pound of beef from the cow that eats it. Would it not be more efficient if everyone only ate these higher efficiency foods? It could help, but even putting aside personal opinions on going meatless, there are nutritional and economic issues to this.
However, there is another high efficiency food source rich in nutrients and easy to raise. The only problem is a far greater societal rejection than that of vegetarianism, because this food source is insects.
Various insects are already regarded as delicacies around the world: an estimated 2 billion people worldwide partake of insects as part of their diet. In most western countries, however, that number is almost zero, and shows no real signs of changing anytime soon.
Insects such as grasshoppers reproduce extremely rapidly, reach maturity quickly, require very little space, are high in protein and other nutrients, and have a feed-to-food ratio of less than two. In addition, they produce little waste, no methane (cow farts are actually a rather high source of the greenhouse gas), eat a wide variety of feeds, and are very cheap. The only downside is an almost complete lack of demand in the western world.
For now, sure, maybe insects are neglected as a food source because of a social stigma. But as time goes on, that could change. In many places throughout the US, snacks made from a variety of insects are being sold, and such things are already commonplace in many Asian and African countries. Who knows what could happen with what we want to eat, or even what we need to eat?
What can we do to counteract this? Many projects aim to increase farming efficiency, ranging from borderline barbaric treatment of animals to vertical farming to new types of higher-yield crops. One argument that I've heard supporting vegetarianism is that it takes about eight pounds of, for instance, corn to produce one pound of beef from the cow that eats it. Would it not be more efficient if everyone only ate these higher efficiency foods? It could help, but even putting aside personal opinions on going meatless, there are nutritional and economic issues to this.
However, there is another high efficiency food source rich in nutrients and easy to raise. The only problem is a far greater societal rejection than that of vegetarianism, because this food source is insects.
Various insects are already regarded as delicacies around the world: an estimated 2 billion people worldwide partake of insects as part of their diet. In most western countries, however, that number is almost zero, and shows no real signs of changing anytime soon.
Insects such as grasshoppers reproduce extremely rapidly, reach maturity quickly, require very little space, are high in protein and other nutrients, and have a feed-to-food ratio of less than two. In addition, they produce little waste, no methane (cow farts are actually a rather high source of the greenhouse gas), eat a wide variety of feeds, and are very cheap. The only downside is an almost complete lack of demand in the western world.
For now, sure, maybe insects are neglected as a food source because of a social stigma. But as time goes on, that could change. In many places throughout the US, snacks made from a variety of insects are being sold, and such things are already commonplace in many Asian and African countries. Who knows what could happen with what we want to eat, or even what we need to eat?
Friday, January 20, 2017
What Political Polarization has Wrought
There is a troubling trend that I have recently been noticing among politics and news in the past months. More and more, people on both sides of the political spectrum are building echo chambers and refusing to give credence to anything that contradicts their worldview. No amount of evidence or reasoning will be able to pry them from their holes, as they resist with cries of "fake news," "librul tears," and "deplorables." Because yes, both sides are doing this, but only one side is in power right now. And that makes this situation incredibly dangerous.
Before I go on, allow me to digress into "fake news," a term I see popping up more and more. The term fake news had a correct, accurate, and useful meaning for about two weeks, then it rapidly morphed into what means today. What fake news did and should mean is entirely fabricated, clickbait articles manufactured by illegitimate news sources to generate traffic on social media to their sites. What it now and should not mean is "I get to ignore this piece of news from a main-stream source because it contradicts my views."
The vast majority of still legitimate news sources will have a bias, but that is a far cry from reporting objectively false information. This method of simply ignoring everything you don't want to consider exacerbates the problem outlined above. Again, both sides have fallen and are falling into this trap, but fake news agencies themselves have noted that certain types of conservatives are more likely to "fall for" these articles, and therefore write and target them at those demographics.
Using this process of delegitimizing the media and listening to only sources that support their views, supporters of everyone from Obama to Clinton to Sanders but especially Trump are able to maintain support for their candidates no matter what actually happened/is happening in the real world. And it is this that is so incredibly dangerous, because this is how tyranny begins. When you have a popular base in a democracy that will support you essentially no matter what you do, it stops being a democracy and begins becoming a dictatorship.
I can absolutely understand why many people voted for Trump. He said a lot of good things that often needed to be said. In the end, for me, that was outweighed by everything else about him. For many others in different situations, the opposite is true, and that makes perfect sense. What I cannot understand and what repulses and scares me is not Trump supporters, but Trump followers. I do not understand those people who tune out everything criticizing their "god-emperor," who blindly attack all opponents of their candidate, who do and probably will continue to follow and exalt Trump no matter what he does and no matter what is revealed about him. It is these people that are a threat to society, the nation, and democracy itself.
If Trump were not actively ignoring or even reneging on so many of his campaign promises, this would not have to be said. As it is, it must be. Anyone, Trump supporter or not, who finds themselves unable to consider that they might be wrong, that their views might not be correct, that someone else may in fact have a better or the correct way to do things, is fundamentally un-American and undemocratic.
Before I go on, allow me to digress into "fake news," a term I see popping up more and more. The term fake news had a correct, accurate, and useful meaning for about two weeks, then it rapidly morphed into what means today. What fake news did and should mean is entirely fabricated, clickbait articles manufactured by illegitimate news sources to generate traffic on social media to their sites. What it now and should not mean is "I get to ignore this piece of news from a main-stream source because it contradicts my views."
The vast majority of still legitimate news sources will have a bias, but that is a far cry from reporting objectively false information. This method of simply ignoring everything you don't want to consider exacerbates the problem outlined above. Again, both sides have fallen and are falling into this trap, but fake news agencies themselves have noted that certain types of conservatives are more likely to "fall for" these articles, and therefore write and target them at those demographics.
Using this process of delegitimizing the media and listening to only sources that support their views, supporters of everyone from Obama to Clinton to Sanders but especially Trump are able to maintain support for their candidates no matter what actually happened/is happening in the real world. And it is this that is so incredibly dangerous, because this is how tyranny begins. When you have a popular base in a democracy that will support you essentially no matter what you do, it stops being a democracy and begins becoming a dictatorship.
I can absolutely understand why many people voted for Trump. He said a lot of good things that often needed to be said. In the end, for me, that was outweighed by everything else about him. For many others in different situations, the opposite is true, and that makes perfect sense. What I cannot understand and what repulses and scares me is not Trump supporters, but Trump followers. I do not understand those people who tune out everything criticizing their "god-emperor," who blindly attack all opponents of their candidate, who do and probably will continue to follow and exalt Trump no matter what he does and no matter what is revealed about him. It is these people that are a threat to society, the nation, and democracy itself.
If Trump were not actively ignoring or even reneging on so many of his campaign promises, this would not have to be said. As it is, it must be. Anyone, Trump supporter or not, who finds themselves unable to consider that they might be wrong, that their views might not be correct, that someone else may in fact have a better or the correct way to do things, is fundamentally un-American and undemocratic.
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